Mayonnaise

I like mayonnaise. A lot. I like it slathered on sandwiches and tossed with a little sour cream on coleslaw. We also try to eat organic/free range/natural foods as much as possible. We want to avoid genetically modified ingredients whenever we can afford the alternative.

A large jar of organic mayonnaise costs almost $10 at the health food store; the same size jar of generic mayonnaise costs about $2.50 at WinCo or Grocery Outlet. But the primary ingredient in those is soybean oil. Conventional soy is mostly genetically modified soy, these days.

What is the safe, affordable, delicious alternative? Believe it or not, mayonnaise is surprisingly easy to make. I have been told that in France people rarely buy mayonnaise at the store because they are so accustomed to making their own.

Here is what you need:

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon mustard powder

2 tablespoons (apple cider) vinegar

1 cup vegetable oil

blender

Here is what you do:
Put egg, vinegar, salt, mustard, and 1/4 cup of oil in the blender. Turn on low. While it is still on, carefully lift the lid and slowly, steadily pour in the remainder of the vegetable oil. Makes 1 1/4 cups.

This recipe is from Laurel’s Kitchen (an indispensable vegetarian cookbook). I do not have any mustard powder in the pantry at the moment, so I omitted it. I also used rice vinegar rather than apple cider vinegar because that is what we had on hand. The result was very nice. Our natural food store has organic vegetable oil and organic vinegar in bulk, which makes those items fairly affordable.